


The Changeling

by karrenia_rune



Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 15:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expansion of the Season 3 episode "What happens to a Rev defurred".</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Changeling

Title: The Changeling  
Author: karrenia  
Fandom: Andromeda, General series  
Character: Rev Bem  
Prompt #13 Stranded  
Rating: Teen  
Disclaimer: Andromeda belongs to Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks  
Productions; it is not mine.  
Contians spoilers/references to the 3rd season episode "What Happens to a Rev Defurred?"

"The Changeling" by Karen

 

Footing on this broken and battered planetoid is precarious at best, dangerous at the worst of times. It's been this way going on at least the past ten years. With prior knowledge in advance of making the journey to this remote corner of the galaxy does not do much to console Dylan Hunt.

The place is in the process of shaking itself apart due to the tectonic pressured and gravitational fluxes of a star going supernova. One would think those odds would be enough to keep anyone in their right mind as far away as possible, yet here they are. Because of a pre-recorded communique from a long-lost Rev Bem is the reason for their presence in this dying world.

Rommie, Harper, and Trance stayed shipside in order to scan for any traces of their missing friend, Rev Bem.

Of course, Dylan being Dylan would jump at the opportunity to find and save Rev from whatever trouble and or danger the Wayist Magog might have embroiled himself in, despite objections and concerns raised by his crew. It was a moot point now.

He and Beka have covered a lot of ground since they took Slipfighters from the Andromeda and landed on the planet's surface.

Dylan took a measure of reassurance in the mission because regular scans updates as well as a countdown of how much time they have to complete the mission.

"If one were searching for the most out of the way place in the galaxy to get lost in, this would not be my first choice," Beka griped.

"You're thinking somewhere nice and tropical, I suspect." Dylan grinned, then added:  
"Would it make you feel better if I discouraged our friends back there in the brush?"

"Why yes," Beka replied, "that would be lovely. They certainly are quite trigger happy. I wonder what they use for ammo, but I would prefer not to find out up close and personal if you know what I mean."

Following Dylan's shouted orders and hand signals; Beka cut to her immediate left dodging an arcing bolt of laser energy as it arced through the air, leaving a smoking ruin of charred ground, bark, silt and ash in its wake. She ducked again as another volley of debris and weapons fire cut through the air where her head had just been. Grasping the barrel of her own weapon even more tightly, Beka squared her shoulders and spun around on her heel, and returns fire; meanwhile, Dylan flushes handful of their opponents out of cover and keeping up a steady exchange of fire with the remaining opponents.

While this is going on a figure moved at the edge of his perception, but Dylan lost sight of it on a second look because he's tired, and writes it off as a product of his fatigue and imagination, so lets it go without commenting on it to Beka.

Still distant in terms of klicks to cover on foot the object of their frantic search scrambled up and overexposed rises and dips in the uneven ground. Rev Bem concentrated on placing one foot before the next with his cloak hanging in torn shreds from his tall lanky form.

It's nightfall on this perpetually dark and abandoned world. Rev has long since become oblivious to whether it is night or day, instead, it is more like a constant twilight, so it makes little difference of when he travels overland.

The only thing that kept him moving is the unswerving driving force that he must reach his destination no matter the obstacles in his path. There are deep-pitted cracks, boulders big as a small house, tangled undergrowth, and scattered windblown debris, not to mention the small dips and rises that he scrambled up and over to make any appreciable headway.

The brilliant light from the dying star the lights up the sky and the ground more brilliant than it ever did when it was still a life-giving orb in the sky, is the dying white dwarf star.

It's been a long time by anyone's reckoning since Rev Bem has seen his former crew and friends from the Andromeda. In a remote corner of his mind a small worry that they never received his pre-recorded message with the coordinates for this godforsaken rock makes itself known, but Rev Bem forced it aside, along with his concerns for his personal safety. Such matters are only an impediment in his feverish need to reach the source of the star. There are disembodied voices in his head and sometimes he believed that he had taken leave of his sanity. Like the doubts, Rev Bem shoved questions of his sanity aside as well, because it no longer matters.

Encounter

The entrance to the rocky crevice is narrow allowing for the passage of only one person at a time to get inside and that only by squeezing through at an angle. Communications from the ship in orbit have become more and more sporadic as the interference from the magnetosphere and ionosphere that encircles the planet causes havoc with the communication systems.

Beka has sprinted ahead eager to catch up to Rev Bem encouraged by two things, one that they've lost their pursuers, and two that they've made visual confirmation with Rev Bem, even if he did not verbal response to their shouting, waving of arms or yelling his name.

When they finally caught up to him, squeezing through the narrow passage in the rock wall Dylan and Beka let out gasps of both relief and astonishment to see Rev poised on the very edge of a rocky promontory, staring up at the fatal but yet oddly beautiful glow of a dying star.

Rev Bem's posture is that of a man trapped in a dream, or a waking nightmare, with one arm he maintained his rigid upright position; the other uplifted in a gesture of supplication to whatever manifestation he sees within the star's deadly light.

Dylan is torn between calling out to his old friend, letting him know of their presence, and risk breaking the spell. It would be a crushing shame to come all this way, find Rev only to lose to him a mere misstep of falling off the rocky ledge into a long fall down and down. It would mean that they came all this way for nothing, and that is not a scenario Dylan Hunt is willing to accept. Signaling to Beka to watch for their pursuers and to await any message from the ship that time is running out to evacuate the planet.

Dylan inches his way forward. "Rev, don't make any sudden moves," Dylan whispered, "We got your message and way came to save you."

Without turning around or showing any sign that he has acknowledged their presence he replies: "It's good of you to have come. It is a welcome relief that even here, at the end of all things, I am not alone."

"He certainly made a stab at making it hard to find him." Beka griped, folding her arms over her chest, her weapon dangling at a precarious angle. "I've had it with the cryptic lines. We found him now let's get the hell outta of here."

"I am glad you came for me, Captain, but a part of me wishes that you had not." Rev tossed the comment over his shoulder, his back still toward them; his gaze fixed on the dying star overhead. From this high elevation it seemed to his tired mind that it's close enough to reach out and touch, that all he has to do is stretch his arms out to the maximum and believe hard enough to make it come true.

"You will very little argument from me," Beka added, glancing around the narrow open to the sky ravine, towards the shifting rock walls that hemmed them in on all sides, except where Rev stood on the highest promontory, at the luminescent sky overhead. One might almost consider it beautiful in a deadly way if it were not for the fact that it could boom in a matter of minutes or even seconds and take them with it.

"Hunt to Andromeda, three standing by for pickup. And make it quick, I'm really not in the mood to go out with a bang," Dylan added, echoing, if he had realized it or not, Beka's unspoken thoughts from seconds earlier.

Aftermath

Later, aboard the Andromeda

"If you are hoping for salvation or whatever, it has very little meaning to me at this point. I was referring to the final battle at the threshold of eternal darkness with oneself as the only witness. "Rev Bem smiled, a thin narrowing of his lips, but the smile does not match the look in his eyes.

Rev has changed. And not just his outward appearance, the Magog as a species are generally very hirsute, but the new and supposedly improved Rev is as smooth of a human swimmer which gives him a sleeker and aerodynamic look. The fur is gone; a certain wide-eyed innocence and belief in the general goodness of the universe and his fellow humanoids is gone.

Dylan cannot put his finger on what exactly happened to bring about this startling metamorphosis, but he knows he does not like it. It made him uncomfortable and it goes against all of Dylan Hunt's carefully nurtured tried and true rules of how the universe should operate. He preferred order and rules; things that make sense; he does not like it not when the essential order of the universe is thrown out of whack.

"So, where to start?" Dylan says, awkwardly trying to strike up a conversation.

"The beginning is usually a good place."

"For a man who was literally at the end of his rope hours earlier, you look well."

"Amazing what a few hours sleep and a hot shower will do for one's constitution, Rev smiled and it is a toothy one, but it is reflected in his eyes. "I clean up well."

"You're were looking for answers."

"I was looking for something, certainly, or perhaps it was the other way around, and that ill-defined ‘something’ came looking for me. And, no, before you ask," Rev Bem paused to scratch at an itch, "I am not referring to my former friends and crewmates. Although I am grateful that you came for me."

"Serendipity. You know I believe in a destiny a man makes for himself."

"Dylan, for a minute there, a very brief minute there, you almost sounded like our dear Tyr Anasazi. Amazing, your enemy is your number one teacher." Rev Bem frowned. "I never really appreciated the value of those old sayings until now."

"And that's all you will say." Dylan demands.

"For now, yes. I wish I had the answers Dylan, but at the moment, no. I cannot."

Conclusion

"Have I told you lately that I hate the Spirit of the Abyss," Dylan mutters to Beka.

"No, not in the last ten minutes, or was it hours, I lose track."

"She's right, you know." Harper adds," And here I thought we'd seen the last of that thing."

"Maybe, maybe not." Dylan shook his head, his breathing still a little shallow, "It's difficult to say for sure. I wish there were someway proof positive way we could be rid of that thing."

"Rev was less than forthcoming of how or way he started out adorable and furry before his ordeal on the planet and emerged cryptic and defurred once he got off of it?" Harper asks.

"You could say that," Dylan nodded..

"He sure didn't stick long enough to offer any explanations or hail fellow well met, did he?" Harper shrugged.

"Somehow I feel that things would have worked out differently if we'd gotten there sooner, or not let him alone," Dylan said. He tapped the tips of his fingernails against the helm console wondering where Rev might have gone after he said he would be seeking out a new path, one that helps him reconnect with his Wayist beliefs.

"Look, I know you well enough to say this with a degree of certainty, " Beka said," Stop beating yourself up. Rev made his choice if that was even him… she paused "If he had been taken in by the Magog's 'god.’”

Beka raised her hand with the palms up and waggled the fingers closest to the thumb when she says the word 'god', "is that's what's eating at you, or the fact that you found him only to lose him again?"

"Just him. It's become personal," Dylan replied. "Look, I appreciate all of your concern, but the discussion over for now, and there's little to be done about it. Let's just move on, all right?”


End file.
